Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 338 pages of information about Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive.

Likewise they profess and declare, that God, as the
last and finishing part of his workmanship in this
lower world, created man an intelligent being, endued
with a living, reasonable and immortal soul, whose
greatest glory consisted in his having the gracious
image of his God and Creator drawn upon his soul,
chiefly consisting in that knowledge, righteousness
and inherent holiness wherewith he was created.
And further, that God, in his favor and condescension
to man, was pleased to enter into a covenant with
him, as the public head and representative of all
his posterity, wherein God promised unto him eternal
life and blessedness with himself in glory, upon condition
of personal, perfect and perpetual obedience; to the
performance whereof, he furnished him with full power
and ability, and threatened death upon the violation
of his law and covenant, as is evident from the sacred
text; Gen. i, 26, 27; Eccl. vii, 29; Gen. ii, 17;
Rom. x, 5, and according to our Confess, chap. 4,
Sec. 2; chap, 7, Sec. 1, 2; chap. 19, Sec. 1; larger
Cat. quest. 20; short. Cat. quest. 10, 12.

V. OF THE FALL OF MAN.—­They again assert
and maintain, that the first and common parents of
mankind, being seduced by the subtilty of Satan, transgressed
the covenant of innocency, in eating the forbidden
fruit; whereby they lost the original rectitude of
their nature, were cut off from all gracious intercourse
with God, and became both legally and spiritually
dead; and therefore they being the natural root of
all mankind, and the covenant being made with Adam,
not as a private, but a public person, all his descendants
by ordinary generation, are born under the guilt of
that first sin, destitute of original righteousness,
and having their nature wholly depraved and corrupted;
so that they are by nature children of wrath, subjected
unto all the penal evils contained in the curse of
a broken law, both in this life, and in that which
is to come; Gen. iii, 6, 13; Eccl. vii. 20; Rom. v,
from 12 to 20; Rom. iii, 10-19; Eph. ii, 3; Confess,
chap. 6: larger Cat. quest. 21, 22, short.
Cat. question 13 to 20.

In like manner they assert and declare, that all mankind,
by their original apostasy from God, are not only
become altogether filthy and abominable in the eyes
of God’s holiness; but also, are hereby utterly
indisposed, disabled, and entirely opposite to all
good, the understanding become darkness, and the will
enmity and rebellion itself against God; so that man,
by his fall, having lost all ability of will to what
is spiritually good, cannot in his natural state, and
by his own strength, convert himself (being dead in
trespasses and sins), nor can he in less or more contribute
to his own salvation, or in the least prepare himself
thereunto; neither is there any natural, necessary
or moral connection between the most diligent and
serious use of the means, and obtaining salvation
thereby. Although the Presbytery maintain, that
as a God of grace has promised the converting influences
of his Spirit to be showered down upon dead souls,
in the use of means of his own appointment; they are
therefore to be attended to with the utmost care and
diligence; as appears from Rom. v, 6; John vi, 44,
65; Tit. iii, 3-5; Job xiv, 4; Confess. chap. 9, Sec.
3; larger Cat. quest. 25.

Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.